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Messages - MatchstickMan

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Hello, TPF!

Mesmasounds is hosting a remix competition with absolutely NO GERNE LIMITS!

Here's a link to the group for the contest where you can download the stems!
https://soundcloud.com/groups/the-framework-origins-remix-competition-mesmasounds

Have fun!! Contest end son the 21st of April.


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You Might Like... / Calling all trance & progressive musicians!
« on: January 28, 2016, 06:37:49 pm »
Hello, TPF!

I am the owner and co-founder of the new trance and progressive record label Mesmasounds, and we need your help!

At the label, I want to build up the roster and have a diverse range in styles and artists, as to make the label something more!

We have a pretty wide range in style that I like to release for the label, ranging from progressive trance, to progressive house, to bigroom trance, to deep trance, to uplifting trance, to psytrance, you name it.  If you have come good experience in any trance or progressive music, shoot us an email at mesmasounds@gmail.com!

We're reaching our sixth release, "Origins/Prismachor" by The Framework, on the 19th of January

We have some great things in store for this year, including some projects and compilations using methods never been seen before in labels such as this. 

Here's out social media links:
https://soundcloud.com/mesmasounds
https://www.facebook.com/mesmasounds
https://twitter.com/mesmasounds
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1h6enJATfnchHRF4MsAfnQ
https://pro.beatport.com/label/mesmasounds/51758

Also, if you have any questions, go ahead and ask here! I'll try to clarify anything for it!

Our current roster is as follows:

Brial, Circle Effect, Colorpoint, Commerce, Daniel Cuda, Erik F, The Framework, Jeff Smudde (yours truely), Kinesthetics, Luke Icard, Neon Discharge, Nicky Miles, Prodigal, Sèris, WaffleNinja, and maybe you! (that was super cheesy, I'm not sorry)

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(in case i'm reiterating anything, i usually respond without having read previous replies)

What i do is i analyze various songs that have emotionally affected me, such as Jaco & EASE - Lumina, S8&T - Rubicon, Andrew Bayer - Once Lydian, A&B - We're All We Need, jason Ross- Solaris (Very anjuna-heavy with this list here..)

After analyzing what chords work in cadences (look up how cadences work if you don't know, it also helps to know how to write chords properly as well), i find any chord that sounds good as a starting chord, usually it has the I or the V as the most dominant note in the chord (usually done by doubling up on whatever note it is)  After i find a good chord that sounds powerful enough to start the chorus, all focus goes on how each chord interacts with the other chords, find cadences that hit you in the feels.

Another thing to keep in mind:  you don't have to stay strictly in key, you can use accidentals as long as it works in the progression.   Listen to any classical work and you'll find tons of accidentals that are there to make the progression move along nicely. 

hope this made sense!

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Sound Design / Re: Lush trance breakdowns
« on: January 15, 2016, 05:42:01 pm »
Well that video worked well, here's attempt #2:
https://youtu.be/MW7YFwH4QGE?t=1m27s

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Sound Design / Lush trance breakdowns
« on: January 15, 2016, 05:41:32 pm »
Hello, TPF!

So I've been producing progressive trance, progressive house, trance 2.0, you get the idea, for about one and a half, two years now. 

Basically, i've realized my weak spot in this style is my breakdowns.  I can make a basic cheezy-sounding modern progressive house style breakdown, where it's short, got a catchy piano melody and all that jazz, but that's not the kind of thing i'm looking to put in my [trance] songs.

How can i make a breakdown that involves pads, vocals, piano, the whole nine, such that it sounds that like Andrew Bayer, Above & Beyond, Jason Ross kind of stuff. 

This kinda stuff (@ 1:27)
[iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MW7YFwH4QGE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen][/iframe]

What are some good ideas and tips behind designing pads, layering, all that stuff?

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Inspiration/Creativity/Motivation / Re: How do you speed up the process?
« on: January 10, 2016, 12:13:36 am »
Organization. 

Having a pre-set project format for whenever you open your DAW or when you open a new project, you can have a completely set up project with the organization you want. For Ableton that's done in the preferences, not sure for other DAWs.

Color coding is also extremely helpful, i organize my colors as if it's the light spectrum, red being for basses, green for live instruments, etc.  Basically whatever the instrument group's frequency is most dominant, that's the color it will receive form the light spectrum.

Developing your own organization that makes sense to you can do so much to speed things up.  But remember, it's not about how fast you get things done, but the quality of what you put out, that can take months. I have a project that is officially two years old now, and i still haven't finished it.  Speed isn't everything.

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Inspiration/Creativity/Motivation / Re: What/Who inspired you to start?
« on: January 08, 2016, 03:47:17 am »
Back in 2013, I was in a really bad place.  I had been in a relationship for some time prior to my spark of production, but in June, that relationship ended, and not on good terms.  I was broken and I needed something to get my mind off to the breakup.  I already had a love for electronic music, that started back in 2009, so I had the thought one day "how do these musicians do this? Make electronic music?" Then I did some research found FL Studio and Ableton, Cubase, the whole nine.  But after I began to produce, I fell into the hole of letting it drown out my life, I let production consume me and I suffered in school and socially.  Slowly, I realized the problem I had with my obsession.  I let myself out, out of the hole I made for myself. I learned to balance my everyday life and my production life, as a way to escape from everyday life.

In summary, my inspiration was a time of depression for me.  I needed an escape from a bad time in life, and now I use production as a way to allow myself to connect with others, communicate emotion in ways beyond language.

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Composition/Arrangement/Theory / Re: Is music theory really important ???
« on: January 07, 2016, 04:55:21 pm »
I'm sure I'm just reiterating a lot of posts here but here's my 5 cents:

Music theory is probably the most important thing any musician can have in their mind.  I use the term musician because if you a producer for say, a band or pop singer, most of the musical work is done for you, especially with bands where you are just taking recordings and mixing and mastering them.

Also, the more important thing to realize about music theory is that you can't learn it in a month.  Music theory takes years to fully understand every little intricate aspect of theory.  Even musicians that have been practicing for ten, twenty, thirty years sometimes don't fully understand theory, but they know what sounds right.  That's another point is that all humans already have the extreme basics of music theory integrated in your brain, where you know instinctively what sounds right.  If you play one note wrong on a scale you've never played before, you know it's wrong and you try to fix it. But the fact that its takes a long time to study should never stop you.

Music theory is simply that, a theory.  They are rules that have been developed from some of the greatest composers of all time, being Mozart, Beethoven, and many others.  These guys used all kinds of modulations and countings, and using harmonics to make notes sound diffenrt than they actually are.  This shows how using theory to BREAK theory is the best thing you can do.  Things like secondary dominants and key modulations within songs are very fun to do, sound fully original, and yet, they are derived from theory.  There's a very good reason why these classical composers were used to develop theory, give their music a listen some time and you'll hear why.

But for electronic musicians, the most important thing you should all take from theory if you chose to study it is chord writing.  It's the bones of what we believe (that chvrches reference) when it comes to melody writing.  If you come up with a great chord progression, writing a melody on top of it becomes so much nicer and fits better. If you take a melody you wrote already, you can easily analyze the notes in the melody to write a progression underneath it within ten to twenty minutes. 

Theory may just be a theory, but everything in it can be done backwards, forwards, sideways, and flipped inside out.  Theory goes beyond just knowing how to write chords, rhythms, and key signatures, but rather it's a nearly endless array of rules and structures to ENHANCE your composition.  Theory is incredibly important to know if you want to be a better musician. If you want to use the rules to break the rules (when in fact you're just using another part of theory), you need to know theory.


For those of you who are interested in studying theory, in case it shan't been posted already, here's the most helpful website I have ever found on theory, it saved me in my theory classes in school:
https://www.teoria.com/index.php

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Mixing/Mastering / Re: Tell us your master chain!
« on: January 07, 2016, 04:30:51 pm »
My master chain goes a little like this:

Using Ableton stock plugins and some that I already have cuz I'm poor

Many controls are linked to macros on an effect group on the master
EQ8 to dim down any high resonances>Multiband compression OR Glue compression (depends on the song)>Sausage fattener (veeerrly minimal - used for saturation and flavoring purposes)>if I don't use sausage fattener, I use stock Ableton saturator>EQ8 with flavoring in either highs or lows (depends on song)>Limiter6>Flux stereo Imager>Spectrum analyzer

I want to make this a little more precise, but I'm still learning how to master properly, so this will probably change in time.
I always master with audio stems at below -6dB, so I know that's all good and dandy already.

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Mixing/Mastering / Re: The Do and Don't Encyclopedia
« on: January 07, 2016, 04:12:06 pm »
Do: Go back to old projects to see if you spark any new ideas for current ones.
Don't: Let a few days of writers block make you throw away a project.

Do: Organize, organize organize.  Color code, label your tracks, set markers in the timeline.
Don't: Have unnecessary audio & MIDI tracks in your project - like old versions of synths, audio tracks with loops and samples you aren't using, etc. It makes so much clutter and harder to keep your mind focused wile trying to finish a track.

Do: Set deadlines for yourself - this ensures that you can do better if/when you get more into the industry (such as being on a record label or being a producer for a band).
Don't: Focus on one project at a time, have more projects to work on when you get writer's block on one project. Bounce around your project folder and find that old song that you never finished and see what you can do. This helps wonders.

(This one is more on the promotional side)
Do: Release some free songs now and then, if you do that, people will more than likely follow you and support you more, 'cause who doesn't like free music?
Don't: Focus so much on finding a record label to sign to. Take your time, develop your style, but when you have projects that are of high enough quality, go ahead and send them as demos, it never hurts, but remember, even if they don't take it, it's not the end of the world. Release that song fro free and you'll see how people take it.

Do: Find a balance in your life - don't let production drown out your life. I did this a while back and it actually hurt me mentally.  You need some time out of the studio, go out with friends, make friends, eat some actual food (I have this problem when producing - eating too much junk food). Take a walk, if you longboard, that also does wonders.  Basically, get out of the house for a little bit. make a habit of this so you don't end up being a studio potato.
Don't: Forget to produce! For many of us, composing and producing is our way to escape everyday life, so that's where the balance part comes in!

I'm done, hope all this was helpful, and if any of these were already stated, then i'm just reiterating them unintentionally.

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Hello TPF!

I am the owner and operator of the new trance and progressive label Mesmasounds, and this is the most recent release from it!
This is a release that includes 2 originals from Kinesthetics and a remix from Colorpoint.  The first two are progressive trance tracks while the remix is deep house.

Hope you enjoy the songs and don't forget to drop a like and follow on Mesmasounds if you enjoy the stuff we put out :)

Link to listen on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/mesmasounds/sets/kinesthetics-stingers-dhan-out

Support on Beatport:
https://pro.beatport.com/release/stingers-dhan/1667899

Follow Mesma on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/mesmasounds
https://www.twitter.com/mesmasounds

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